Specialization in design

Specialization in design enables reuse of design elements, just as specialization in content allows reuse of processing rules. These rules involve the creation and management of markup modules as separate reusable units.

1. Why specialization in design?
   Following the rules for specialization design enables reuse of design elements, just as following the rules for specialized content enables reuse of content
2. Modularization and integration of design
   Specialization hierarchies are implemented as sets of module files that declare the markup and entities that are unique to each specialization. The modules must be integrated into a document type before they can be used.
3. Integration
   Each domain specialization or structural specialization has its own design module. These modules can be combined to create many different document types. The process of creating a new document type from a specific combination of modules is called integration.
4. Modularization in DTDs
   To support extensibility and pluggability, DITA requires that a DTD implementation of structural and domain specialization modules conform to well-defined design patterns.The attribute domain pattern is a special case of the domain specialization pattern, which allows the creation of new attributes specialized from the props or base attribute.
5. Modularization in schemas
   To support extensibility and pluggability, DITA requires that an XML schema implementation of structural and domain specialization modules conform to well-defined design patterns.

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OASIS DITA Architectural Specification v1.1 -- Committee Draft 13 February 2007
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